The Gardens at Sandon Hall, the much-loved stately home of the Earls of Harrowby for almost 250 years, are being prepared for the wedding season. With our first of the season happening at the end of March and our Wedding Showcase on 8th April our Head Gardner Grant and his team have been busy at work in the 50 acres of ornamental gardens.
The promise of spring is beginning to show in the garden. The snowdrops, hellebores & cyclamen are in full bloom, the first daffodils are opening into flower, the tulips are just starting to push through the soil & the buds are swelling on the trees & shrubs. We are busy mulching the flower beds & shrub borders with compost ready for the growing season. Our regular Oak tree farm volunteers have been in twice this week raking up the remaining autumn leaves which will eventually turn into leaf mound to be reused back in the garden.
Our plans for 2018 is to create a potager (ornamental fruit & vegetable garden) within the Temple Garden. Work started on this in January, by clearing the overgrown rhododendron’s, buddleia & brambles from inside the orangery & around the whole perimeter. Next, the team tackled the overgrown yew hedge bringing it back into shape. Then scraped off all the grass which covered the entire upper planting beds revelling a symmetrical layout made from paving slabs.
Into February, Grant and his team turned their attention to the middle section tackling stubborn weeds, removing overgrown hydrangeas & a tired looking Virginia creeper from the 100-year-old pergola & changing the square planting beds into circular beds.
After weeks of looking through seed catalogues & tweaking the plan we now have the final design for this year. With a mixture of fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, cut flowers & edible flowers some of which will be permanent & some that’s are annuals changing seasonally. The greenhouse is already packed full of Ammi & sweet peas & we are just about the start sowing the vegetable seeds.
The next stage is to dig over the planting beds & add lots of compost to give the plants the best start in life. It will be an ever-changing scene & will add a different dimension to the garden.
Once completed this will be ideal for our outdoor civil ceremonies held in the fully licenced Temple Garden, which was first created 200 years ago. Why not come along and see how the team are getting along, either at our Wedding Showcase on 8th April or the Spring Fair in May, or have a special guided tour by Grant and his team at our next open day on 15th July; details of all our events can be found on our “What’s on” pages.
